Wednesday, August 01, 2018

Disaster

Rabbi Pinchos Lipschutz

The Washington Post recently reported on breaking
news: “Taking on positions as clergy in a tradition where women have never been
clergy before, they have adopted a variety of titles. Some call themselves rosh
kehilah, meaning ‘head of the community.’ Some go by maharat. Rabbanit.
Rabba. And even rabbi.”

In case you didn’t get it, they explained, “That’s
right. There are female rabbis now in Orthodox Judaism. Not many, to be sure.
Since Rabbi Avi Weiss privately ordained Rabba Sara Hurwitz in 2009 and
declared her the first female Orthodox clergywoman - then founded a school,
Yeshivat Maharat, to train more - his school has ordained 21 women, and others
have been ordained privately. That’s tiny compared with the 1,000 Orthodox
rabbis in the global Rabbinical Council of America, which refuses admission to
women. But this small group of women is becoming far more significant in
Orthodox Jewish life. Women lead synagogues now in New York and in
Massachusetts.”

Many of you who are reading this article view this as
a joke and wonder why in this newspaper we spend so much space and ink
reporting on the advances that Open Orthodoxy is making across the country.

One of the reasons is because this disaster is coming
to a town near you, before you know it. Many sit comfortably in their cocoons,
viewing themselves and their communities as impervious to the perversions of
Open Orthodoxy and other deviant groups.

Many see themselves as so firmly entrenched that
nothing can influence them and negatively impact the strength of their
community. But then, when Open Orthodoxy comes to town, people gather in
despair, wondering how to prevent their community from falling prey to the
so-called progressives who sell a watered-down version of halacha to
good people who don’t know better. Being aware of the threat and properly
educating those who are searching can prevent much pain and loss.

Rabbanit Dasi Fruchter, an assistant clergy member at
Beth Sholom Congregation in Potomac, Maryland, just announced that she is
moving to Philadelphia to open a new shul there. Of course, it will be
Orthodox. She got a grant from a new fund that was established to support
female-friendly Orthodox synagogues. So, while we are sitting around ignoring
the growing problem, the other side is ramping up their efforts at promoting
their feel-good agenda.

She is not the only one. The Post cites the examples
of Rabbi Lila Kagedan, who leads the Walnut Street Synagogue in Chelsea,
Massachusetts, and Rabbanit Adena Berkowitz, who started Kol HaNeshamah in New
York.

The Post says that Fruchter “chose Philadelphia
because the local Orthodox community is growing.” In other words, people in
Philadelphia are returning to Orthodoxy after having recognized that
Conservative and Reform Jewry are vapid and fail to provide serious religious
fulfillment.

So, this woman and others like her come along and take
advantage of these serious people who seek to observe Torah and mitzvos,
selling a story that by following them, they can have the best of all worlds.
They sell themselves as halachically Orthodox. No, I am not making that
up. Fruchter herself says it.

“I assure them it’s going to be traditional, halachic:
fully in line with Jewish law in terms of Modern Orthodox understanding,” Fruchter
said.

Who, you wonder, pays for this? The article answers
your question. “Her synagogue is funded by Start-Up Shul, a new organization
aiming to create gender-inclusive Orthodox synagogues. In the model of
Christian church-planting efforts, said Rabbi Shmuel Herzfeld (the leader of
Washington’s Ohev Sholom and a co-founder of Start-Up Shul), the organization
will fund two synagogues this year and hopes to increase to four or five new
synagogues per year in the future.

“We want to support entrepreneurial rabbis - maharats,
rabbanits, whatever they call themselves - who are going to create a
synagogue supportive of women in leadership positions in the clergy,” said
Herzfeld. “Without question, most Orthodox Jews are absolutely ready. Her
synagogue is going to be bursting through the roof within five years,” he
predicted. “She’s such a talent. People are going to be coming from all over
Philadelphia just to be taught by her.”

Who is Herzfeld? Why, he is the Orthodox rabbinic
leader of a shul where females are employed as clergy. He formed the
Beltway Vaad, an Open Orthodox group of male and female clergy who are involved
in conversions and kosher supervision, among other things. Along with Maharat
Friedman, he runs DC Kosher, which endorses local gentile vegan and vegetarian
restaurants through random checks by volunteer mashgichim.

His shul is Orthodox, of course. In fact, it is
a member of the Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations of America, a.k.a. the
Orthodox Union or the OU. Though in 2013 it was the first shul to hire a
maharat, the synagogue organization has not yet revoked the shul’s
membership. The article says that “Herzfeld believes most Orthodox Jews don’t
care” about having women rabbis in Orthodox shuls.

If you do care, he doesn’t care about you and people
like you. He funds start-up Orthodox shuls such as Fruchter’s and will
continue to push the envelope until Open Orthodox innovations become
acceptable.

The article reports: “Rosh Kehilah Dina Najman said
that when she became the spiritual leader of New York’s Kehilat Orach Eliezer -
which chose to hire her after considering male rabbis for the position - people
asked members of her synagogue if they were willing to attend a shul
with a female leader. But once these skeptics attended a service themselves,
they were often persuaded.

“‘When I initially did some weddings, people said,
‘What is going on here?’ When people saw, ‘Hey, this is halachic,’ they had to
see it for themselves. . . . They saw this is a halachic service. ‘So she
speaks. So she gives advice. So she gives the leadership. Now I understand.
This is something that doesn’t hurt my sensibilities,’ said Najman. Now the
leader of the Kehilah in Riverdale, Najman says the number of male Orthodox
rabbis who accept her as a peer has gone from a ‘handful’ to ‘hundreds.’”

“‘Time is a big deal. I think change takes time,’ said
Weiss-Greenberg. ‘The more that you meet these women, you hear their Torah, you
see them responding to crisis and simply being there, you realize what we could
be losing out on.’”

Weiss-Greenberg “described female Orthodox clergy who
ministered to victims’ families in Las Vegas after the mass shooting there and
who joined in Black Lives Matter marches. Young children, she said, will grow
up knowing only this model of Orthodox Judaism. ‘That’s exciting. In general,
the notion of all this being normalized is extremely heartening,’ she said. ‘I
did not think the landscape would be what it is today 20 years ago.’”

Orthodoxy has always been lacking because it did not
have clergy who marched in BLM rallies, these people would have you believe.
Now, thanks to these courageous new rabbis, that void is being filled.

Orthodox is no longer not normal, they’ll tell you,
because they are with it and progressive. Why, they are even in sync with the
most aggressive (anti-Semitic) anti-establishment anarchists.

We can either laugh or cry, though perhaps we should
be doing the latter.

We learn the parshiyos of Devorim in
which Moshe Rabbeinu admonishes the Jewish people prior to his death, as they
stand at the doorstep of Eretz Yisroel. In this week’s parsha of Eikev,
we read how Moshe Rabbeinu told the nation that they would be blessed if they
would follow Hashem’s mitzvos. He warned them not to fear the nations
around them and not to succumb to their fallacious ways and observances.

“Destroy their idols and don’t be desirous of their
gold and silver, for then you will take them for yourself and Hashem despises
them. Do not bring their iniquity into your home, for you will then be
detested. Despise it, for it is abominable” (Devorim 7:25-26).

Moshe was saying not to adopt their idols, physical,
spiritual and mental. Don’t adopt their practices and culture for yourselves,
for if you do, Hashem will despise you.

Don’t attempt to follow the zeitgeist of your
neighbors if it is not in keeping with Jewish custom, for it will lead you down
the wrong path. And don’t compromise on time-honored values to conform with
what you believe are the mores of the day, for doing so will lead you away from
the practices Hashem, your G-d, has commanded you to follow.

Moshe further warns not to forget Hashem and cut
observance of His mitzvos, mishpotim and chukim (Devorim
8:13).

The pesukim in chapter 8 further admonish the
people, stating that should they become wealthy, they dare not become haughty
and forget everything Hashem has done for them, for man does not live on bread
alone; he exists by following the word of Hashem. If you think that you have
earned your many possessions by yourself, through your own intelligence and
hard work, you will be smitten by Hashem for not following His commandments.

We must not imagine that the Torah is open to modern
day interpretations that emanate from secular theologians and common practice,
for by doing so we are introducing abomination into our homes and synagogues.
The same philosophy that actively pursues compromises on gender inclusion in
the synagogue will also come to welcome and accommodate compromises and actions
that the Torah specifically terms abominations.

For just as the Torah foretold, what began as small
cracks and minor adjustments in observance has snowballed into what can only be
viewed as a new form of religion, unrelated to the Torah and Orthodoxy.

The message of the parsha is direct to us as
individuals as well, not only to leaders, groups and communities. Though we are
in a relaxed period of the year, the words of this week’s parsha are
directed to all and deserve to be studied seriously, lest we ourselves fall off
the proper track.

It is easy to become enamored with our own abilities
and project our successes as personal victories we earned. One who fails to
work on self-improvement can easily become enamored with himself, leading not
only to social problems, but deeply religious ones as well. Humility coupled
with emunah and bitachon goes a long way toward making us better,
healthier, and happier.